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Monday, January 13, 2014

Its Dany Heatley Week!

Dany Heatley has been a sore spot for Wild fans all year. His nonexistent play at times have seen everyone cry out for his benching, or in some cases, his release (BREAKING: its not happening). But the last two games, Heatley has stepped up notching two points in each of those games.
So now as we head into this week, there is one common theme for all of these games. That theme is Dany Heatley.

He kicked off the week with those two points (goal and assist) in a 4-0 rout of Nashville yesterday. There is no real history between Heatley and Nashville, other than the fact he has scored 15 goals and 11 assists in 23 career games against the squad.

Now lets look at the other three games week and the connection they have with Heatley.

Photo: Ottawa Sun

Tuesday vs Ottawa: Heatley played four seasons in the Canadian capital. During that time, he was one of the league's most prolific goal scorers putting up 50, 50, 41, and 39 goals in each of those respected seasons. During Heatley's time in Ottawa they were a Stanley Cup finalist in his first year, but saw the team decline to an 11th place finish in the East in his final year. A declining role with the team lead to Heatley requesting a trade out of Ottawa after the 08-09 season. It was a messy divorce that ended up with Ottawa sending Heatley to San Jose, while Heatley collected a roster bonus from Ottawa. Not a great ending scenario for the cash strapped Sens.

Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Thursday vs Edmonton: During the period between Heatley asking to be traded out of Ottawa to the point where he was traded to San Jose, he almost found himself on a different team not named the Senators or Sharks. The team was the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers and Senators had agreed to a deal sending Heatley to Edmonton in exchange for Andrew Cogliano, Dustin Penner, and Ladislav Smid. The deal was nixed by Heatley as he invoked his no trade clause, and basically became public enemy number one in Edmonton (Side note: It was speculated that Heatley killed this deal to collect that $4 million bonus from Ottawa).

Photo: Michael Mulvey/AP

Saturday vs Dallas (Hockey Day Minnesota): No, Heatley has never been on or was thought to be going to Dallas. He just scores frequently when he plays them. Prior to Saturday's two point effort against Colorado, Dany Heatley's most victimized Western Conference team was the Dallas Stars. In 27 games against the Stars (put obligatory Norm sucks comment here), Heatley has notched seven goals and twenty assists while having a +/- rating of 11. Not bad considering the Stars were a pretty good team (lead by guys like Modano, Turco, etc.) during Heatley's golden years .